


A flower, a seed, a bar room brawl

by taran



Series: Manhandling Without Plot [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bar Room Brawl, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Is it platonic or is it pre-slash, Jaskier | Dandelion Being a Feral Bastard, MWP (Manhandling Without Plot), One Shot, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Whump, Witcher Hate, but like in a manhandly way because that's right folks, what does your heart desire?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22611787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taran/pseuds/taran
Summary: Geralt hasn't come back from what he hadassuredJaskier would be a one day job. Jaskier does what any self-respecting companion of The White Wolf would and gets drunk, gets into a bar room brawl, and gets clobbered, in that order.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Manhandling Without Plot [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626946
Comments: 86
Kudos: 780
Collections: Best Geralt





	A flower, a seed, a bar room brawl

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Мордобой, цветок и семечко](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670985) by [gronkowski](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gronkowski/pseuds/gronkowski)



Jaskier manages to land two good punches before the scrawny man with the prodigious beard pins his arms behind his back. After that, his compatriots take turns. He can only think vaguely, when a fist hits him in the cheek and then the mouth, that he’s glad they’re peasants and not lords or dukes. No rings. It is, in fact, an improvement to his usual.

Granted, his usual scuffles do not generally happen in defense of the honor of a certain Witcher, but his own. Or that of his most recent paramour’s. Or his most recent paramour’s jilted lover/husband/wife/oldest son. 

Regardless. Jaskier takes the hits like a champ, he feels, and when the two step back to perhaps consider a more creative approach to his mauling he spits a gob of bloody spittle at their feet and bares his teeth.

“Couldn’t have waited, could you, for Geralt to come back? You’re brave against an unarmed bard when you’re spewing _filth_ ,” he whips his hair out of his eyes, licks his bloody teeth, “but the White Wolf? He’s out there solving your problem for you, so you might show a modicum of gratitude." 

The freckled one thanks him for his character evaluation with a punch to the ribs that makes him gasp and retch. The other follows it up with a punch to the gut that does make him vomit, this time. It just barely misses his tooled leather boots. Hanging forward, his shoulders panging, Jaskier groans out a laugh and shakes his head. Spits stomach acid.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he weren’t drunk, is the thing. The room is spinning and has been for some time, since the third strong ale, and he had stopped playing to sit in the corner where Geralt would usually sit. If he were here.

That’s the rub of it, really. _One day,_ Geralt had told him. _Back in one day._ But it’s been nearly two and Jaskier is, is fucking panicking and hating himself because why did he let Geralt convince him to stay?

 _It’s too dangerous,_ Geralt said. It’s what he always says, and Jaskier always tags along anyway. Danger doesn’t put him off. It drives him, he _thrives_ on it, needs it like a man needs air to breathe and bread in his belly because without it the world is stale and music staler. Nothing is worse than an armchair composer who writes of heartache and the blood of battle and the triumphant return of the hero without having seen it himself, breathed it, felt the blood spray across his own face and felt the icy plummet of fear in his own chest when something inhuman screams too close. But Jaskier isn’t out there to feel it. He’s in a tavern, and the icy slide of fear is for a completely different reason, one that does not make him feel more alive but makes him feel pinned and frantic.

The next fist hits where the first had, right handed, a fist to the ribs. It neatly severs his internal dialogue, which is all for the better, considering he had been drinking to do the same thing. This is, wholesale, the more effective. At the thought Jaskier laughs a staccato, penny in a shaken tin laugh. The sound falls into a groan of pain.

“Your Witcher’s not coming back, bard,” Green Eyes sneers. Jaskier just manages to lift his head to look at him. “He’s either a coward what ran off with the coin or a dead man, and either way he’s worth all of a hefer’s shite,” and he laughs, because Jaskier is too drunk to control his face and he is snarling like an animal. 

He stops laughing when Jaskier leans back into the trapping hands, reels in his leg, and kicks him full in the bollocks with his heel. Green Eyes drops. The bearded one holding him overbalances, apparently nearly as gone on the house ale as Jaskier. It’s enough for him to wrench away, turn, and with a move he hasn’t used since he was a boy he throws all his weight from hip to shoulder into an elbow that splits the man’s bearded cheek open like a peach. The choked sound he makes as he staggers back makes Jaskier grin just as mean as the elbow was.

They devolve into an all out brawl after that. Admittedly, Jaskier is not a fighter, and definitely not a brawler, but he gets his hits in and he takes them. It seems to have barely started before a hand curls in his collar and scruffs him backwards out of the scree. Without thinking, Jaskier struggles, only to find his limbs going limp when a familiar voice growls out,

“What the fuck is going on here?”

“Geralt!” Jaskier crows, twisting about in the dangling grip to find, yes, Geralt of Rivia stands as sturdy and frosty eyed and Witcher-y as ever, with only the faintest spatter of gore to betray his recent activities. Jaskier feels…

Well, a lot of things; but he is very drunk, so belay that. His rolling eyes find his hands and, oh, look at that, he’s bleeding. And aching. And it catches up all of a moment. He remembers suddenly why and jerks forward again, ire burning through him in savage opposition to his pains.

“Let me go, I’ve- I’m busy, I’ll show these brutes- _cowards,_ ” he lobs, absolutely frothing at the bit. The ruffians, however, have had a sudden compunction. They stand back out of arms’ reach (he knows; he swipes, fruitlessly) and gaze warily upon him. Him, and Geralt, he realizes, who shakes him once like a disobedient dog. Jaskier settles, just.

“Control your boy,” spits the freckled bastard whom Jaskier hadn’t yet managed to bloody (and he was sure Green Eyes would be pissing blood for a week, so it counts; gods, does it count). “Lost it all of a sudden, he did. We was minding our business, just having a lark-”

“BOLLOCKS!” Jaskier- well, he roars, voice warm and open still after his performance. It feels so good, so- you see he’s warm all over, blood pumping, and Geralt is back, and he’s a lot of things at once but he’s still furious so he shouts, “you lice-ridden twice-deformed shite-brained bastards, I heard you! Your words aren’t fit to repeat in front of the man they besmirched and I’ll, fucking, I’ll eat- no, _you’ll_ eat them-”

“Settle down!” Geralt snaps. Usually at that tone Jaskier might have listened

(might)

but he has been drunk for well on two hours now. It hadn’t been enough to scour the terrible burn, the itch from his veins waiting for a familiar silhouette to come to the tavern entrance and break through the unbearable fell energy of it. He had taken more hits than he would like but his knuckles itch and he can still hear them laughing into their ales while his friend meets a fate Jaskier can’t know. 

So Jaskier doesn’t settle. He strains so hard against the hold that he hears the fine wool of his jacket strain and begin to rip, and Green Eyes is just able to unhunch himself again so Jaskier flings out a kick that only grazes the muscle of his inner thigh and would have hit home had Geralt not yanked him back so sharply. Even so, the man flinches heavily. Jaskier cackles. The room rollicks.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says. Jaskier almost wishes he were more sober, because he could swear the Witcher sounds poleaxed. A hand closes on his neck before he can do more than note it and jerks him about. Geralt doesn’t say anything, but levels him with a look- brows raised, confusion and annoyance and exasperation and something that makes his hackles rise even as he struggles to find the real Geralt when suddenly he is seeing two of him. Jaskier sways. His hands bat against Geralt’s chest, one missing and landing at the sweat slick base of his neck and, listless, remains there.

“Let go,” he protests, trying to stand up straight and failing, fuck. “It’s not my first tavern brawl, I’m- I was fine, I’m not done, they haven’t yet, guh,” he burps.

“You’re done,” Geralt says with finality. Then Jaskier is air borne, facing the finest bum on the Continent, and too overwhelmingly irate (and dizzy) to pay it much mind. Yelling indistinctly, he kicks. Even with Geralt’s forearm an iron bar across his lower thighs, he squirms and kicks so furiously that Geralt curses and clamps an unmovable hand on his thigh just under the meat of his arse and effectively pins him there to his shoulder. Jaskier curses back, more creatively.

Geralt says something to the brawlers, maybe. Or maybe he just grunts threateningly at them. But then he is tromping to the stairs and up them, and the rise and fall of his shoulder against Jaskier’s gut is reminding him vividly, fluently, of the punch he took there and also the large quantity of ale sloshing therein even after he sicked up, and so he doesn’t say anything as Geralt removes them both to their room. Well. Doesn’t say much.

“Ow, fuck! Ungrateful pissants, who hits a drunk man in the belly,” he complains to the passing stairs, still tasting bile. He taps Geralt where he can reach him-- namely, the top of his well-proportioned rump-- and says pleasantly, cajolingly, “yeah, alright then, big boy, let me down. I’ve not done with them.”

Geralt ignores that second part blatantly. “Was this before or after you nailed the one in the balls?” he asks with only mild judgement as he shoulders in through their room’s door. Jaskier thinks he might sense a whiff of amusement in his tone, too. Jaskier sniffs superciliously.

“Before, which is to say he deserved it and I’d do it again.”

“I know,” Geralt rumbles, dry like gin. “You tried,” and presently dumps him on the bed. Jaskier groans.

The room is- is wobbling, is the word he wants to use, but thinks that can’t be right. Perhaps just his head wobbles, then. Ah, well. Naught else for it. When he swings his legs, dangling as they are over the edge, he can just lever himself up on his elbows. It’s a good start. Or would be, if Geralt didn’t immediately plant a massive hand on his collarbone and pin him to the mattress neatly.

“Stay,” Geralt says.

“No, thank you, I,” he pushes. Geralt doesn’t budge. His face is still hot, but now he feels it creeping down his neck, too, feels mad and wild and not just at the idiots down below but at everything, maybe up to and including Geralt. “Geralt, I swear, if you don’t- let me up, damn you, it’s up to a man to end his own affrays, just- _Geralt_ \--” The veil of pleasantness drops; Jaskier shoves at the Witcher’s arm to no avail, curses, and ends up simply squirming ineffectually deeper into the quilts, his back gone sweaty and himself preposterously out of breath. Geralt, for his part, leans his weight for one breathless moment on Jaskier’s chest with that one hand, annoyance forming a line between his brows even as his eyes flare in a little look that Jaskier knows means he’s annoyed yet too pleased with himself. Leans his weight for a moment, pressing him breathlessly down, and growls,

“ _Stay,_ bard.” 

They stare, Geralt that utter inhuman still and Jaskier heaving out great impotent breaths just this side of choked. Geralt is _heavy._ The leather from Geralt’s gauntlet has gone warm and slick with his sweat and possibly blood where it sits at his open collar and Jaskier is, well, he’s… he’s bloody miffed but he knows when he’s beat. And so does Geralt. 

Without another word, Geralt withdraws back and begins divesting himself of his armor with decades-won efficiency. After a long moment staring at the ceiling and thinking very rude things about Geralt’s genealogy, Jaskier slowly goes up to his elbows to watch. When the man shoots him a warning look, he flashes his hands up from the sheets in surrender and moves no more. Grunting, perhaps satisfied, Geralt returns to his work.

Jaskier, maybe, quite possibly hadn’t been in the best mindset to note when Geralt first returned, but he can now take stock. The man is largely unscathed. There is muck on his boots and trousers up to the knee, spatters of it and some other unnameable gore on his chest piece and the skin of his neck and over the jaw on one side. It might have been a dashing look if it didn’t make Jaskier scared. No matter how his eyes rove, however, Geralt removes each piece smoothly and reveals that he is quite unharmed underneath. Unharmed. Just, you know, a day late. 

Jaskier is angry. He hasn’t stopped being angry. Why is his heart still pounding? He swallows and licks his teeth, only to wince at the salty tang of his own blood there. His teeth had cut his cheek and lip open the one (two? shit, three) times he was struck in the mouth. Absolute scoundrels. To strike a bard in his instrument-

“What was it about?” 

Geralt’s voice cuts through his fuming just as he was working up to jumping up and storming back down the stairs. It neatly diverts him. He blinks at the man and

Geralt is down to his shirt sleeves, rolling them up to the elbows, even. He is dirty and smells of old sweat and bitter herbal potions and swamp algae but he seems largely unharmed save the hint of a scratch here, the suggestion of a bruise there and

Jaskier is, by great universal irony, more banged up than Geralt is. Geralt, who had disappeared on a hunt and not come back, damn him. That of all thoughts sticks to the back of his throat and

“You, you great oaf,” he snaps. “Or did you not notice the dripping disdain to which those fine gentlemen treated you?”

“Same as everywhere else,” Geralt points out.

“ _No,_ ” Jaskier doesn’t mean to be but he is standing, suddenly, swaying, the room a spinning top. “It’s not and it shouldn’t be and I’ll be, be- I’ll not let them get away with it.” He makes it two staggered steps towards the door, “-bet they’re down there, right now, s-snickering again. I’ll-”

“-sit down before you fall down. I don’t need you fighting for my honor.” The snarl wouldn’t have stopped him (trust Geralt the great self-sacrificing git, who hasn’t said so but Jaskier knows he thinks he deserves it, somehow, is inherently hated and hateful and deserves it and it makes Jaskier want to break his fingers on someone’s jaw and he’s going to, he’s going right now-)

-the snarl wouldn’t have stopped him, but Geralt moves so quickly and silently for a man of his size. His hands, free of his gauntlets, both wrap in the gauzy material of Jaskier’s chemise where it shows through his jacket. (When had his doublet popped open? Absolutely, frightfully scandalous, he was practically brawling _au naturale!_ ) Jaskier grabs his wrists without thinking to keep the shirt from tearing. Using the point of contact, Geralt guides Jaskier back towards the bed and with an easy nudge to the back of his knee sends him flat on his back once more. The ale in his gut sloshes. His ribs twinge; he groans. The room spins. Geralt glares at him like he is the one wronged, here, and flashes teeth.

“I think you’ve taken enough hits.”

“Not me, nn,” Geralt turns away, not long enough for Jaskier to right himself, returns with something in hand, “not me that was, was going to- oi!”

He slaps at the offending hand tugging his chemise from his trousers. Geralt makes a sound that could have curdled cream to curds and seizes his wrist to pin it firmly but fiercely to the bed, eyes flashing a warning. Mulishly, Jaskier waits until he moves back to his ministrations before flopping it contrarily for no other reason than to irk. Geralt ignores it in favor of yanking his shirt up and-

“Ow!”

-pressing exploratory fingers to his ribs.

“Does that hurt?”

“‘Does that’- did you not just hear me yell ‘ow’?”

Clearly ignoring him, he does it again. Jaskier struggles up onto his elbows, scowling, to frown down at the forming bruise on his ribs that Geralt seems so determined to mash. It has the splotchy, maroon-speckled look of something that will both be hideous and hideously painful for weeks to come. When Geralt makes no comment but simply continues to prod his ribs as if he intends to move them, Jaskier attempts to slap his hand away. Geralt takes the offending limb and causally, thoughtlessly presses it captive under his own until he falls still.

“Not broken,” Geralt grunts at last and, blessedly, retracts his fingers and releases his hand. Only, of course, to scoop a dollop of salve out of the little clay pot he’d gotten from his bag and then proceed to smooth it on roughly. Jaskier squirms away from the touch, whining.

“Must- ow!- must you be so terse about it?” He hisses in a breath as, “ _oh,_ why does it sting?”

“Stinging nettle.”

He sputters. “It didn’t sting last time! Wh- Why in the world would you--”

“Clarifies the other ingredients. Makes the salve more effective.”

“And where did you hear that codswallop?”

“Yen,” Geralt himself clarifies, shockingly forthcoming. An incredulous laugh punches out of Jaskier.

“ _Yennefer of Vengerburg_ tells you to rub stinging nettle on your wounds, the- the medicinal equivalent of kicking a man while he’s already down, very in character for her-- and you _believe her?_ ” 

Geralt gives him the flat-eyed unimpressed look Jaskier finds most often on street cats and proceeds to prod him in the gut, hard. The move reminds Jaskier, oh, he had been punched there. Multiple times. His reaction is much more overstated this time. He lands a sounding smack across the back of Geralt’s hand and just barely gets a leg up enough to press his foot into Geralt stomach and push him back. And he is apparently so caught off guard that it works. Rocking back, the Witcher grunts in surprise. The little pot drops from his hands onto the quilt.

The sharpness of his voice when he growls, “Jaskier,” is familiar as his _I’m running out of patience with you_ tone. Fortunately, Jaskier is drunk and buzzingly strange and doesn’t care with just enough vigor that he is not above trying to kick Geralt away again when he looms closer.

“Ah, no! No, you big brute, not if you’re going to be so rough! As if the nettle weren’t enough!” A hand grabs his foot and throws it and his entire leg to the side. He fends with the other. “I was fighting for your honor!” Jaskier reminds him.

“Will you-- _fuck_ \--” Geralt bats his flailing leg away. “I didn’t ask you to!” and grabs the other knee as Jaskier tries to ratchet it back in for a kick. It is instead pressed open and down. Geralt pins him like a beetle to a board.

“No fault of mine you don’t care a lick, because I do.” Jaskier tries and fails to kick him away again with his remaining leg. “Stupid, noble-” Geralt shoves it away and crowds heavily into the space between his thighs so he has no room to draw up for another go, “-self-flagellating, stubborn-” “Gods dammit, will you-” The hand pinning his thigh uselessly to one side squeezes just threatening enough that he stills, scowling.

“Where were you?” he demands. It is overly loud in the small room. Geralt freezes.

Oh, was that Jaskier’s voice? As if he’s thinking the same thing, Geralt blinks down at him. And it’s…

Jaskier is flat on his back with his chemise rucked up to his armpits, salve burning on his bruised ribs, breathing hard; he is drunk, but not nearly as drunk as he was when he threw that first punch; Geralt is stupidly strong and has him pinned beneath one hand and the sheer girth of his own hips, looking grumpy and short on patience, and under everything-- the aromatic menthol and chamomile smell of the salve, the aching of his cheek and lip, the relief of seeing Geralt just as upright and uninjured as he had been when he left, Jaskier is… 

He had thought he was furious. He still is, somewhat. Like… like a seed is a flower. It was, at first, before it became something else. And given enough time it might become such again. It is what it is in the meantime, however. Fury. Seeds. 

Or, was it a flower in the metaphor? Jaskier is not furious anymore. He is a flower, though. _Jaskier._ The little yellow ones. Had been angry but now… he becomes something else.

Discombobulated as he is, the disjointed line of thought makes a thread of sense to him. 

Which is why Jaskier doesn’t struggle even a bit when Geralt slowly, cautiously, eyes never leaving his face with something of a warning but also a breath of unreadable intent, slowly releases his pinning hold and instead reaches for the salve again. He presses on Jaskier’s bruised gut and diaphragm for a long silence. Satisfied with whatever he finds, he spreads salve over the bruising with a concise hand. He takes up each of Jaskier's hands next, to brush salve over his split and bruising knuckles-- worse off than he had thought. And though Geralt doesn’t back away from where he's crowded close to keep him in place, it seems more like he has just left the contact there for… who knows. A closeness. A reminder. 

“You were meant to be back yesterday,” Jaskier adds, as if time hasn’t passed. As if Geralt had not said not a thing. Geralt shrugs one laconic shoulder, grabs him under the knees, backing, and drags him curtly forward to the edge of the bed. When gestured to, Jaskier manages to sit up, barely. He groans emphatically. Geralt steps forward back into the space between his splayed knees. 

“It didn’t work out,” is the enlightening reply. Jaskier glares at him even as Geralt grabs him by the jaw to tilt his face back and to the side. After a long moment of pressing at his swollen, very tender cheek, Geralt sighs. It puffs down Jaskier's chin and neck. “It took longer than I thought to find the nest. I had to be sure, though. It’s mating season,” he explains to Jaskier’s questioning noise. He huffs; it became a hiss. On the thinner skin of his face, the salve fucking burns.

“Right, mating season. Don’t even want to know what that looks like.”

Geralt rumbles a sound that might be a laugh and might be any other number of things. At a particularly firm pass of his fingers, Jaskier instinctively grabs his wrist and ducks back a hair, eyes squinching into a wince. He lets go immediately at Geralt’s look, of course. He ends up folding his hands in his lap for lack of better to do. 

“I should have been there, you know. Look at you,” unable to turn his head from where it is held, he slaps blindly and finds Geralt’s sturdy thigh. He gives it an appraising couple of pats. “I’ve had worse scrapes and bruises tumbling into a bramble patch! How, how dangerous could it have been, hm?”

“Would have been more dangerous if I had to keep an eye on you,” Geralt reminds him. Jaskier ignores him primly.

“And you’ll never give me the full story. How am I meant to write like this? Getting descriptions from you is like squeezing blood from a turnip.”

“Hm.”

“In fact, this is all your doing! I wouldn’t have gotten into a fight if I hadn’t been here to hear the frankly disgusting things they were saying about you, and having heard some truly-- excuse me, do you mind? I think the entire side of my face must be well salved by now, yes?”

And he is being a brat, he knows, which is why he deserves the brisk tap to his bruise. It doesn’t stop him ducking dramatically back, of course, but. It’s the principle.

However, he is apparently done, for Geralt straightens and steps back with a sigh. When Jaskier tips back his head to glare up, however, his thousand-pound head continues back, back, swims, and rocks to one side. Helpless, Jaskier follows. Geralt jerks forward and catches him as he overbalances. 

“How much did you have to drink?” he asks, with actual inflection for once. The hand steadying Jaskier's shoulders comes up to join its brother at the back of his head. Jaskier scoffs into Geralt’s collar area.

“Enough,” is not the correct answer, per se, but it is his answer. Geralt _hm_ ’s, runs carefully, probing fingers across his skull, nape to temples. Then, with that mystery ritual complete, guides him back into laying, one knee dipping the mattress as Jaskier’s hip. Jaskier rolls with it, frowns, and starts, “Geralt--”

“Do you ever stop talking?” 

_No_ , Jaskier opens his mouth to say. Geralt sticks a finger in. Carefully, almost delicately, he peels Jaskier’s lower lip back from his teeth and frowns at it. 

Jaskier lets him. He hadn’t noticed, before, but he realizes now that in the aftermath of being madder than he has been in recent memory, after his heart has quit pounding and some switch had been flipped in his body from _fight_ to _alright_ , he is actually quite tired. Geralt is back. Their room is warm from the fire kept stoked in the hearth by the tavern keeper's maids. The stinging that came with the salve is beginning to dissipate, leaving behind a pleasant numbness. Well, and the ale’s work as well, probably. And Geralt, for all his manhandling, is being quite gentle. Almost nice, even. 

Geralt swipes a careful thumb over the cut inside his lip. Jaskier winces at the immediate pain that follows the salve, opens his mouth to complain and gets a thumb swiftly tucked into his cheek, pressing into the inside where it feels swollen and torn. The half-hearted hand he prods into Geralt’s chest at least removes the offending digit so that Jaskier can call him a bastard through a numbing mouth. Geralt just wipes his hand on Jaskier’s shirt (rude!) and, standing, says not unfondly, “Go to sleep, bard.”

So Jaskier does, and thinks perhaps he dreams Geralt pulling the boots from his feet to roll him fully into bed. It’s nice.

The following morning, with a hangover like a bear and his mouth tasting of rotten herbs and old blood, it is distinctly less nice. Jaskier doesn’t let Geralt wriggle out of his accompaniment again for a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing feral!Jaskier has been my privilege and my pleasure. Ain't a soul can tell me that boy won't throw down in a grubby Temerian tavern.


End file.
